Celebrating 2018 and Going Deep in 2019

A special end-of-year message of gratitude and support for the members of the Remake Learning network from Remake Learning director Sunanna Chand.

Dear Remake Learning network,

It’s been an honor to watch you shine in 2018.

Throughout the year we visited with countless educators (in schools, museums, libraries, nonprofits, and more). We chatted with learning scientists, technologists, and policy wonks. We’ve done our best to listen to you and support you in your quests to ignite engaging, relevant, and equitable learning in our region. We’ve celebrated you as you’ve supported young people navigating rapid technological and societal change.

We’re in awe of all you’ve accomplished with our region’s young people. Let’s take a quick look back at just some of the highlights of how you’ve worked together this year.

Looking back on 2018

In May, we announced 66 Great Remake grantees. These grantees are dabbling with connected, deeper, and personalized learning. They’re amplifying youth voice, uplifting play, and redefining STEM. Visit any one of them and you’ll see remaking learning in action. To see the full list of grantees, click here.

Throughout the year, you engaged with working groups coordinating activities to reduce duplication and increase collaboration across six focus areas. You can find a summary of these groups here. Among other things, members of these working groups:

You collaborated in person this year all across our region. Over the year, we hosted 51 events attracting nearly 3,000 attendees, including more events in our rural areas. To see upcoming meetups or review past notes and videos, click here.

You celebrated and showcased your work during Remake Learning Days. 20,000+ people attended Remake Learning Days events in 2018. Over 250 events were held that showcased the future of learning. Parents report statistically significant gains in familiarity with STEAM each year of Remake Learning Days. It’s personally my favorite week of the year, because I get to devote 100% of my time to being a guest in your incredible, innovative, joyful spaces and see the young people you work with flourish.

Finally, we were excited to expand our reach in rural areas this year. If you haven’t met Remake Learning’s Rural Outreach Coordinator, Allie Mullins, learn more and connect with her here.

We’re ever grateful for each and every one of you who are working on behalf of our region’s children and youth day in and day out. Thank you. You inspire us.

Coming up in 2019

We couldn’t be more excited about supporting you to ignite engaging, relevant, equitable learning in 2019. Here are just three of what will be many opportunities:

Be creative: What risk could you take to make positive change with just a little help? We’ll be making 100 grants of $1,000 each to ignite creative approaches to teaching and learning. Look for the application in March and a deadline in April. A perfect opportunity to support summertime and back-to-school activities.

Be seen: Remake Learning Days is going national, expanding to five regions across the country. Start planning your own Remake Learning Days event and be a part of the Pittsburgh region’s presence on the national scene. Visit remakelearningdays.org to submit your event. Event submissions due February 1, 2019. Questions? Contact Dorie Taylor, Dorie@RemakeLearning.org.

Be celebrated: HundrED is a global platform that seeks and shares inspiring innovations in K12 education from around the world. The HundrED Spotlight Pittsburgh will identify 10 inspiring innovations in education from the Pittsburgh region and share them with the world. Any member of the Remake Learning network can submit an innovation. Visit HundrED.org/Pittsburgh to submit your innovation by the deadline on March 15, 2019.